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Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:01 pm
by seanandruby
Most of the time now all you hear on site is "where's your gloves and glasses", from the young blue hats who think that covers the whole spectrum of HaS. I was on a carrrilion site last year doing some remedial work ( Queen Alex hospital portsmouth. ) got a free breakfast on the first day for safe working practice. Thought it was ran well safety wise.
Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 9:59 pm
by rab1
The problem now is that all major contractors BB, Laings, Carrion, BAM, Bovis, Mace, Skanska etc have gone down the zero tolerance route on safety, no act deemed unsafe will be tolerated.
On a Laing site any of there employees can issue a yellow card, that includes the man emptying the bins in the canteen.
As an M&E contractor our major problem is that the above`s mentioned attitude to access to our works etc is - it`s our problem, they don't care as long as their Brickies/Gyproc contractors keep to program they can throw our men off site.
Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 10:53 pm
by henpecked
I worked a Skanska site. All the H+S seemed to be all lip service. As I drove probably the most lethal bit of plant (telehandler) and have done for the best part of a decade, no provisions were made for traffic management, lifting protocol, deliveries I could go on, but suffice to say it was the biggest pile of doo Ive ever experienced.
From small sites Ive worked to £600 mil (the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Brum) jobs, they really were pants, as long as the forms were filled and backs were patted, head were firmly in the sand.
H+S come with experience and common sense, not banging on about 'gloves' and turning a blind eye to all the other bits 'just to get the job done'
Ah!
Thats better!
Hp
Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 12:04 am
by Stuarty
Worked on a few sites where H&S have been lax to say the least. One firm in particular, based in Glasgow, had use going up ladders with 600x600's. Sending materials and men 80foot up in a cherrypicker to the balconies, where you had to time your actions to the motion of the machine swinging about. Even after a scaffolding collapse on that site and the company were fined H&S was low down on the list. Then again, on the other side of the scale, was doing work for Miller Homes, the site was finished, not even a portacabin left on site, still, the site agent drove over 40 miles to ensure we had hi vis and hard hats on, incase a stray roll of turf landed on someones head :laugh:
Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 7:51 am
by oioisonnyboy
I agree sean. As long as you are wearing your plastic sunglasses and wooly gloves then you look safe. That is as far as they are useful in actually providing protection.
Situations like this have got a lot worse in the last 6 months. Beginning this year a lot of large contractors (Three I definitely know are carillion, skanska and costain.) have started a process of standardising their site management. Before, if the site manager knew the craic, had a bit of sense and was generally not shit scared of the threat of audit or random inspection and walkaround by the directors, then life was a lot less complicated.
Since spring this year the whole idea of "Company ethos" has been bandied about. This means if you go on a site in Kent, the site management procedures will be the same as on a site in Norfolk, or Cornwall or Scotland. In some respects this is not a bad thing. On the other hand the site agents hands are tied, there is no room to maneouvre or solve a probelm by applying creativity or logical thinking and when the chips are down, the enormous paper trail behind every activity means that if any QA, safety, sustainability problems arise the responsibilty is firmly with the subcontractor. No contractor is perfect admittedly, but the attitude is that "My papers are all in order, therefore I cannot be at fault."
For example, subcontractors are constantly beaten up with the "Programme" stick, but if any unforeseen circumstances arise, a little flexibility and willingness to work together to solve the problem goes a long way. In this way, everyone is "pulling on the same rope". Paperwork and "Company ethos" rules this out unfortunately. Toe the line...or down the line.
The best example I can think of is a teacher teaching a mixed ability class. Some "pupils" (site managers) are dafter than others. As a result, the "teacher" (head office, HSE et al.) can only go as fast as these less able pupils.
The not so good pupils get buried in the paperwork and it prevents them being able to do their day to day duties. It can be a barrier for them to hide behind and can be used as an excuse when it would be a lot simpler to own up and say "I don't know".
The more able pupils get frustrated by the paperwork as they are constantly being told to question best practice and when pressed for time up against a tight programme, they still have to go through the official channels to cover themselves.
Experience counts for nothing, without a paper trail even the most able and experienced workers can be treated as if they were dog rough cowboys, and this is where the element of danger creeps in.
sorry...2 rants in 2 days, but this is a subject that I have to deal with first hand 6 days a week. Fair enough no contractor is perfect, but when peoples lives are made needlessly difficult for the sake of arse-covering, then it does get a bit annoying.
Posted: Thu Jul 16, 2009 8:19 am
by henpecked
+10
Hp